Verba de Futuro
by MorganFerdinand
Summary: Sherlock's three missing years were spent doing... what? multiple chapters written, but not yet posted
1. In Transitu

Molly dabbed at the cuts on my face and hands. For someone used to working with the dead, she was quite adept at dealing with the living. She was gentle, apologising softly when the antiseptic made me flinch. Contrary to popular opinion I am not a machine and I am capable of feeling pain, especially when I'm in a state of decreased adrenaline.

"I can't believe it worked" she whispered as she applied a butterfly suture to a particularly deep gash on the outside of my left hand.

"I didn't doubt it," I said. Then, remembering to be kind, I turned to her. "I didn't doubt you." She blushed and studied the equipment in her hands.

"I don't think anything needs stitches, but I would like to get you an antibiotic. Do you want anything for pain as well?"

"No thank you, Molly. I can't afford to have my senses dulled."

She frowned, worried. "Just for a night or two, while you're here. You _did_ have a serious accident, after all."

"I said no."

She backed up a few steps and looked at the floor, the wall, the doorway – everything but me. "Just thought I'd offer," she mumbled and disappeared, presumably in search of the antibiotics. I exhaled and wished for a moment that I _could_ have a painkiller. Some form of opiate to silence the muscles in my back and shoulders. I raised my arms carefully, holding an imaginary violin. Mimed a few measures of Bach's Violin Partita number three in E Major. The suture on my left hand stretched and threatened to pop off.

Molly returned with a small bottle and a mug of water. I accepted both, shook out a pill and swallowed it. "I trust you didn't slip me a painkiller instead of an antibiotic." I made an attempt at teasing, and hoped she took it as such.

"I think you of all people would know if I tried something like that." She smiled and seemed more at ease. Perhaps the adrenaline was wearing off for her, as well. "I still can't believe it worked."

"You've said that."

"Sorry." Again she dropped her gaze. _So submissive, Molly. No wonder Moriarty had used her_.

_Think, Sherlock. What are you supposed to say in a situation like this_? "Again, I trusted you with this for a reason. I didn't doubt your skills."

"There's an unused room down the hall. It's... overflow, I guess, for when the main morgue gets backed up. Anyhow, it's always locked and there's only three of us with a key so you should be safe there until you're ready to leave."

"Thank you. Molly. Honestly, I couldn't have done this without you." _And Mycroft_, I thought. I'd already sent him a text saying that the first stage was complete and I was safe. Sometime during the night he'd see that I was taken out of the city – the country – and that I'd have what I would need to proceed to stage two of the plan.


	2. Incipit

The first one was almost too easy. A combination of luck, Mycroft's access, and the homeless network led me to Kieran McKenzie.

Kieran McKenzie was a gambler. Almost all the money he was paid for his assignments went to bets on everything imaginable. I knew that the Germany versus Greece would be something he couldn't resist, and a quick review of his credit card transactions told me which pub he was likely to be in during the match.

It took me very little time to become someone new. I didn't need an identity yet – just an appearance. I shaved the sides of my head, cut the top very short, and bleached it. Instead of turning blond, however, I ended u p with coppery tone that I could live with.

I changed into ill-fitting cargo trousers and a faded, obviously many-times-washed t-shirt, and shabby trainers. Affected a simian sort of gait, carried myself so I appeared shorter, and went to the pub.

A few well-placed words in the right ears heated up the crowd. A few more words in a few more ears raised the temperature to the boiling point. And then, another word spoken loudly ignited the room.

During the brawl a knife found its way into McKenzie's back, causing kidney damage and internal bleeding. By the time the authorities broke things up, it was too late for him.

The chaos of the fight completely obliterated any sort of usable fingerprints and DNA. Of course, even if they _had_ recovered DNA they would have found that it didn't match anyone in the system.

To my knowledge, the case is still considered unsolved, but is so low in priority that it may never be opened again.


	3. Auxilio ab Alto

In the twenty-first century, when everyone is connected to their mobile phones, netbooks, and tablet computers, no one thinks to monitor the old-fashioned methods of communication. Letters – hand-written, postmarked, and laden with DNA – can now pass almost unnoticed. Burn a slip of paper and it's gone. Tear it up and scatter it in a dozen recycling bins. Drop it in a secure shredder along with medical or financial documents and it is unrecoverable.

Walk into an internet cafe. Find a public place with open wi-fi, or find an unsecured (or poorly secured) private network. Place an ad in a newspaper. For sale. Missed connections. Employment opportunities. Lost dog. Anyone can make any sort of deal without leaving a trace.

Or at least you can leave no trace that will be of any use.

Mycroft and I communicated by letters, leaving telephones (relayed, bounced, and forwarded round the world before connecting) for when it was critical. Typically he would phone me if there was time-sensitive information about Moriarty's men.

Mycroft's letters arrived with a meter mark instead of a postage stamp. The envelopes sealed with a sponge (wet in commercially-available bottled water) and addressed with a rubber stamp – the kind assembled from a kit so there would be no evidence of a cut stamp anywhere. I knew Mycroft's kit would have an equal amount of ink on each letter so no one could point out that any letters had been used more than others.

Not that anyone other than Mycroft or me would notice a detail like that.

The paper was always generic – obtained from nearly any store. It was cheap, pulpy. The kind that fell apart easily when wet. The kind that also burns well.

The letters themselves were printed using neat, all capital letters, like the kind of lettering found on blueprints. Blocky. Common. Made to look so generic that a handwriting expert would be able to tell you nothing other than "he or she is right-handed".

Mycroft is not right-handed.

The letters are written in plain English. No cipher is used. Typically they say things along the lines of "I'm going to be in the area for a conference. We should have dinner." And then a proposed date and time that was easily converted to GPS input. Always a location where one of Moriarty's men would be.

Finding and eliminating them was entirely my task. Mycroft, of course, didn't want to get his hands dirty.


End file.
